During the past week, the UC Davis Medical Center has taken a big step toward what medical center chief executive officer Bob Chason is calling “one of the most important transformations this institution will ever undertake.”
On Saturday, the first phase of the Electronic Medical Record at the medical center, known as Base EMR, went live for use across UC Davis Health System, including the medical center and primary care network clinics.
“It would be impossible for me to overstate the significance of the launching of Base EMR,” said Chason in a letter to the campus last week announcing implementation of the system. “It lays the foundation for the eventual transition to the full EMR, which will allow us to improve patient safety, medical outcomes and customer service, all while reducing costs.”
A replacement for the QuickView system, Base EMR provides a view-only source of certain patient information, such as laboratory results, radiology reports, transcriptions and inpatient pharmacy medications. Base EMR also will be used for signing verbal orders.
Like paper records, electronic records are confidential. They contain patient’s personal details, his or her medical history and documentation of care visits.
At the medical center, the EMR is a key component of plans to develop a clinical information system that provides practitioners access to a single source of patient data anytime, anywhere, using computers located wherever patients are served. Once fully implemented, the EMR is expected to:
• Improve quality of care and patient safety (for example, by reducing medication errors);
• Reduce the cost per case; and
• Create the best patient experience (for example, by providing convenient access to medical information).
Later phases of the EMR will offer sophisticated capabilities for capturing and viewing all clinical patient care information, including problem lists, medical history, visit notes, demographics, order entry/review, immunizations/injections, medications, allergies and patient education.
The EMR will be implemented in several phases. Beginning in spring 2004, Primary Care Network clinics will begin using the full EMR to replace paper medical records and perform online ordering. In the hospital, the EMR will start to be used for nursing documentation in early 2004, followed by clinician order entry in the fall.
In 2005, hospital-based clinics will implement the full EMR; the process will continue until 2006 when paper medical records are expected to be fully replaced.
“It will collect, analyze and organize data in ways that enhance our ability to improve patient safety and care,” Chason said. For example, he said, the system automatically checks for drug interactions and describes “best practices” for any given diagnosis or set of symptoms, based on outcomes of similar cases.
“By guiding treatment toward the best practice and streamlining clinical and administrative processes, the EMR will help reduce the cost per case,” Chason said. “We are among the first wave of hospitals in the country to work toward establishing an EMR, and the first UC hospital to do so,” he said. “We all should take pride in that.”
Chason acknowledged that any major change can be accompanied by stress. “We are doing everything we can to make the transition go as smoothly as possible, and are ready to answer any questions you have about the process,” he said, urging employees who have questions to send them to emr@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.
During September, Clinical Information Systems trained hundreds of medical center employees on the new system. This initial group of staff members — known as “superusers” — will be training the other staff in their departments.
Training and support of superusers continues into early next month. And more than 6,700 of employees have received log-on identification numbers, which will allow them to look up patient information via Base EMR. For more, see http://intranet.ucdmc. ucdavis.edu/emr/.